electronics

The mystery of the empty CES booth

Some had Lycra-bathed women. Some had frantic presenters. Some had brochures, samples, salespeople, three-point shot competitions, and Marilyn Monroe.

But there was (at least) one booth at CES that appeared to have precisely nothing.

Just nothing.

Empty chairs, empty shelves, a blank TV screen, no salespeople, no dancing girls.

This was the booth belonging to Lanyuan Electronics Technology, which appears to be a China-based company that sells very fine cables.

Here, there were no cables to be seen. There were no persuasions to be had. There was just an empty space.

Naturally, I contacted Lanyuan Electronics Technology's reseller in … Read more

When it comes to patient records, doctors guilty of the old copy-paste

Ah, the old copy/paste. Such a handy keyboard shortcut for such a wide range of applications. But would you want your doctor using it while maintaining your oh-so-personal and unique-to-you medical records?

Because chances are good that your doc does, according to new research out of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Excuse me while I take a moment to summarize, rather than copy and paste, some key findings from the research.

Assistant professor of medicine and lead author Daryl Thornton and his team scrutinized 2,068 electronic patient progress reports at an ICU in Cleveland. Some 62 … Read more

Wilson Electronics improves its Sleek 4G signal booster

LAS VEGAS--With its new Sleek 4G, Wilson Electronics brings some long-needed interoperability to cell phone signal boosters.

Debuting at CES, the Sleek 4G supports 4G LTE networks from all major U.S. carriers. And expect for Sprint's WiMax, it's also backwards compatible with existing 3G and 2G voice and data networks.

The Sleek 4G is very welcome since Wilson's 2012 products, the Sleek 4G-V and the Sleek 4G-A, supported the LTE of Verizon Wireless and AT&T respectively, but they weren't interchangeable.

Designed for use in the car or in your home or office, the … Read more

Burglar wearing electronic tag steals laptop

We are all driven by compulsions.

They circumvent our normal thinking systems. They propel us toward the objects of our desire. They force us, at times, to pay a terrible price.

Please, therefore, offer sympathy to Richard Almaraoui, a 35-year-old man from Norfolk, U.K., who appears to be driven to steal other people's things.

So much so that after a previous offense he was ordered by a court to wear an electronic tag.

These things tend to monitor your whereabouts in a fairly accurate way. Perhaps, then, it's best not to burgle a stranger's home, as … Read more

TV in Ultra HD, new designs at CES 2013

Wednesday's CNET Update bends it like Samsung:

Today's roundup looks ahead to the International Consumer Electronics Show, which kicks off next week in Las Vegas. Many companies are already teasing to what will be unveiled:

- Samsung is touting a new TV design, which could be vertical.

- Ultra HD 4K TVs will be big, literally. Westinghouse will be showing its 110-inch 4K LED TV.

- Future LG televisions will no longer have florescent backlights, making LED the standard across all of the company's LCD TVs. LG will also showcase new smart TV features, including voice commands. … Read more

Consumer electronics trade group wants startups... badly

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has launched a new membership category to try and bring more startups into the consumer electronics fold.

The CEA -- which represents thousands of consumer electronics firms -- has created the new $95 membership category as a means of "fostering innovation" in a stagnant economy.

Regular membership fees begin at $850 per year and can go as high as $40,000, depending on a company's annual revenues. Membership includes free registration for the Consumer Electronics Show.

The trade association says it can better serve both "new and established" companies with … Read more

How EA plans to make customers happy. Really

An avid player of Electronic Arts' "The Simpsons: Tapped Out" mobile game, David Lamb was disheartened when he logged into his account in October and found that all of the data from his game was gone.

The iOS game, which is essentially "Farmville" with Springfield buildings and Simpsons characters, rewards players who spend huge amounts of time completing tasks and collecting money in an effort to re-create their favorite animated city. Lamb, a 45-year-old video editor from La Canada, Calif., had accumulated $80,000 in game cash and 70 donuts (the game's premium currency) after … Read more

Senator pressures FAA to get moving on in-flight device use

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill wants you to be able to tweet a photo of St. Louis' famous Gateway Arch while you're soaring above it in your commercial airliner of choice.

At least that might be one option open to you if a letter she sent to the Federal Aviation Administration yesterday has the desired effect.

The Democratic senator said in her letter that she was "prepared to pursue legislative solutions" if the FAA takes too long to loosen its restrictions on the use of portable electronic devices during flights.

"We live in an increasingly connected world, … Read more

YouTube gets channel-surfing makeover

Friday's CNET Update is channel surfing:

YouTube has a new design that puts a greater focus on subscriptions and channels. YouTube hopes it will get more users to stay on the site longer by flipping through channels -- similar to how folks lose themselves while browsing television stations.

Also in today's tech news roundup:

- Foursquare added event listings, so a business can post about when there's something unique going on, such as a trivia night, book signing, or wine tasting.

- You can now create repeat events on Facebook. Handy for people with regularly-scheduled meetups.

- … Read more

Read through many book formats on your iDevice with Stanza

Stanza is a reader for books, available in apps for most devices. We downloaded Stanza from iTunes, and it installed quickly. The app is free.

Stanza lets you read books on your iDevice using a simple, elegant interface. Notably, compared with other reader apps, Stanza supports a wide range of file formats from PDF to EPUB, including those with DRM and without. In fact, we tested Stanza with almost a hundred different books over the space of a couple of months of commuting, and it opened every file we threw at it from different sources. When launched, Stanza shows a … Read more